The Los Angeles Football Club faces an early season test against the Portland Timbers on Sunday night at Banc of California Stadium.

Winless in its last five matches against Portland, including a trio of 2-1 losses last year, LAFC has taken just six out of a possible 21 points against the Oregonians since the 2020 season.

Following a 3-0 opening-day win punctuated by MLS player of the week Carlos Vela’s third hat trick in the league, LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo didn’t expect any surprises as he prepared his players for a “very good” Timbers team that advanced to two of the past four MLS Cup finals.

Portland, which fell in the league championship on its home field to New York City FC in December, tends to avoid mistakes by defending deep before transitioning into a potent counter attack.

Under head coach Gio Savarese, whose fifth season leading the Timbers commenced last week with a 2-2 draw at home against the New England Revolution, Portland has been difficult to break down throughout the league.

“Portland is one of those teams everyone feels like they’re a rival in some way,” said LAFC defender Ryan Hollingshead, who joined the club less than a month ago after eight seasons in Dallas.

The Timbers have derbies with Seattle and the Cascadia Cup against Vancouver. LAFC has “El Trafico” and the Galaxy. But over the previous four seasons, when LAFC and Portland played one another, it was with a heightened intensity that made their matches feel more like a rivalry than most regular-season contests.

Hollingshead could “pick up on the tension” when Cherundolo and the technical staff discussed the upcoming match.

“Every game I think has been competitive enough to be exciting for the fans and for the players,” Savarese said. “Ultimately, there’s always been, in my point of view, respect between the players, but once the game is going on you get good competition either here in Portland or here in L.A.”

After analyzing LAFC’s clean sheet against the Rapids, Savarese saw Cherundolo’s side play more direct than Bob Bradley’s teams. That aspect of LAFC’s attack should be boosted by a fit Cristian Arango. After coming off the bench last week and playing 20 minutes, the center forward is likely to start alongside Vela and Brian Rodriguez.

“They try to build up in a different way than they did before,” Savarese noted. “We feel that definitely some of the things resemble the past, but some of the new things we’ve been looking at and prepared the group well.”

Arriving with physicality and effort, covering a lot of ground while seemingly doing a lot with a little on the offensive end, Portland is “going to try and suck us into that game plan but here that is not our style,” Hollingshead said. “We want to play. We want the football to look good and clean. And we want to move the ball quickly through the middle of the field, so we’re going to do that no matter who we play.

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“There’s a lot of things to focus on. Our preventative defense is huge in this game. Sustaining the attack and not letting them get out with a counter attack will be huge.”

PORTLAND (0-0-1) at LAFC (1-0)

When: 7 p.m. Sunday

Where: Banc of California Stadium

TV/Radio: FS1, FOX Deportes (Spanish)/710 AM, 980 AM (Spanish)